


Where the Skeletons Are

by rivendellrose



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Bad Decisions, Gen, Manipulation, Section 31, Trusting the Wrong People
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 10:41:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17847920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivendellrose/pseuds/rivendellrose
Summary: Ash is having some trouble settling in to his responsibilities in Section 31. Philippa Georgiou is maybe not the best person to help him deal with those qualms.





	Where the Skeletons Are

**Author's Note:**

> For DW user kore, who responded to an offhand remark I made over on spacefungusparty.dreamwidth.org with "omg i want fic." 
> 
> I'm not usually this good at fulfilling requests, but I couldn't stop thinking about this until I'd written it.
> 
> And of course for [gaslightgallows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearts_blood/pseuds/gaslightgallows), because when I sent it to her with a "Eh, not sure if this works or not?" she said "POST IT." Everyone should have such a great enabler. 
> 
> Technically a bit Ash/Michael (and/or a bit Ash/L'Rell) if you squint. Mostly just Ash/Poor Life Decisions.

"I can't do this anymore. It isn't right."

The Emperor -- it was impossible not to think of her that way; he'd never known the original Georgiou, but Michael had talked about her, and she certainly didn't sound like this woman -- looked at him like she was sorry he could even say something so stupid. "And what, exactly, do you suppose you'll do if you leave here, Mr. Tyler?"

He straightened. It was a good question, and he wouldn't pretend that he had an answer, but anything had to be better than this. Cleaning toilets on a deep space outpost somewhere beyond Federation borders would be better than this. "I'll find something."

"Will you." She blinked slowly, and tilted her head just a little. "Well. Perhaps you would. I suppose you think that mercenary work might suit you better -- at least, if you were to retreat into the Klingon part of your mind. Forget what it's like to be Human. That might work, if you're willing to do it."

"I didn't mean that."

"Then what? Prostitution?" She laughed. "There are worse ways to make a living, but I hardly think it would suit you, pretty as you are. If you're determined, though, I can give you the name of a contact on... Oh. Wait. Never mind. You can hardly go back to Qo'noS, can you?"

Ash gritted his teeth. "You know I can't."

"And I know why." The Emperor smiled up at him, the same calmly wicked smile she'd given him months before when she explained to him what L'Rell would be doing to secure her rule, and what he would need to do in order to make that possible, while L'Rell stood behind her, her face like stone and her eyes locked on a burning brazier far away from both of them. "You'll do what you need to do to protect your child and it's mother, I think. That's what good men do, isn't it?"

"L'Rell wouldn't want me to--"

"What she wouldn't want is for you to do anything that would risk her child, and the peace she's just barely hanging onto. You're talking about a woman who sent her lover all but to the gallows for what she believed in and then, when she found out she was carrying his child, cut it from her womb so she could hide it safely away, and never saw it so that it wouldn't be a weakness for her."

"That's... not exactly how it happened..." But it was, more or less, wasn't it? Voq's memories assured Ash that he'd gone willing to the operating table, that he'd consented eagerly to the plans she'd suggested, but there was no arguing that he'd placed his life entirely in her hands, and that she'd been willing to do what was needed with it. She'd seen a way forward, when Voq was ready to accept ignominious death at the hands of their enemies and an end to T'Kuvma's dream, the dream that Voq himself been assigned to carry forward. From that moment on, Voq had never doubted that T'Kuvma had made an error in choosing him and not L'Rell as his successor, and, given the success she'd had with just a little help from Michael, Ash believed that as well. Wholeheartedly. L'Rell was a much better chancellor -- a better leader -- than Voq could ever have been. She knew how to make the sacrifices necessary to lead.

She reminded him of Michael in that way. They both had that laser-like focus, that willingness to shut their own wishes down when it meant the good of the people around them. The ability to see further than most.

"And what of Michael?" The Emperor said, as if she could read the train of his thoughts from his face. "She gave so much for this peace with the Klingons, and you know she values Federation law and Starfleet regulation above all. She would want you to do what you could to uphold it."

"But the means by which we would achieve the ends--"

"Tsh." The Emperor shook her head. "Don't you remember what Michael endured in my universe? Weren't you there with her, her only companion, while Lorca was enjoying his due punishment in the agonizers?"

He closed his eyes. He remembered the torments she'd gone through daily on that ship -- having to not just lie to people she knew, but to have to kill some of them. To pretend not to care about anyone, to be as heartless as her mirror self would have been... How she had admitted to him that she was afraid it was leaching away her humanity, making her no better than them inch by painful inch, but how she had kept going because that was the mission. And Michael Burnham never swerved from her mission.

She'd hate what he was doing. He was sure of that. So would L'Rell. But they would both understand that sometimes duty and necessity required terrible things to be done, regardless of the nightmares it would bring later.

He swallowed. "Tell me the plan again."

The Emperor smiled. "Good boy."


End file.
